By Mike Kunkle, Profit Team Consulting

One of the things that we commonly hear from our customers is how hard it is to find employees. There are a variety of things that go into getting the best people from new hire to solid producing employee that adds value to the company.

We don’t often get the person that we thought we hired after they have worked there for a short period of time. Once again, there are a lot of potential reasons for the person to not be successful in the position they were hired for and need to be replaced.

States vary in how long you have to terminate a new hire without unemployment penalties kicking in. The fear of an unemployment percentage change can pale in comparison to the other potential agencies an employee can get involved. OSHA is an example if the new hire or even an existing employee can be called and they can claim they were terminated for being a whistle blower and then gain a financial benefit for drawing light on the business needlessly.

I aim this article at new hires because a customer of ours just had an issue that resulted in a person getting 6 week’s severance after having worked there for less than 2 weeks and immediately after he finished introductory training.

The site made the mistake of not keeping a meticulous employee file. We live in a world that has a lot of information flying around in it. You hear people say TMI for too much information. When it comes to running and protecting our businesses, I say that there is no such thing.

As I said in the first sentence, we always hear that it is hard to find good people. We need to do more than say it, we need to do 2 things. The first is get better at attracting and interviewing people. The second is make the assumption that they the new hire is going to fail and sue you. You hope & pray this is not the case but if you prepare for it, you will have your bases covered.

What does this mean? Everyone needs an employment file. It should have their application and other forms that you need to add them to your payroll. We all know that one and do a good job on it. How many of you update the file throughout the boarding process? The training schedule of what was covered and when eliminates the he said she said business. A running log of ANY issues regardless of size get put on their record. Any formal or informal reviews need to be documented. The thought of TMI should never enter your mind. Paper and electronic storage are cheap and documenting everything goes towards good housekeeping.

The electronics of today make this much easier. I had a mentor that had everything written down in notebooks. He filled a lot of them during his lifetime and having them served him well. I worked for someone who required us to carry a notebook in our pockets to document things and ideas. Both believe / believed that information was knowledge and knowledge lead to better results.

Why increase your risk of a problem when you can spend a few minutes a day documenting a new hire and longer term employees on a consistent / regular basis. We are the small businesses that everyone seems to think have all of the money and want to take from us. Good record keeping is part of being a sharp operator.